Sudden cardiac arrest is one of the leading causes of death. In the United States alone, roughly 350,000 people die each year from sudden cardiac arrest. It is the leading cause of death for individuals over 40 and the #1 killer of student athletes. The most effective treatment for sudden cardiac arrest is the use of CPR coupled with defibrillation. Automated external defibrillators (AEDs) are portable devices designed to automatically check for life-threatening heart rhythms associated with sudden cardiac arrest and to send an electrical shock to the heart to try to restore a normal rhythm when shockable heart rhythms are detected. The two most common conditions treated by AEDs are Pulseless Ventricular tachycardia (aka VT or V-Tach) and Ventricular fibrillation (VF or V-Fib). AEDs are typically designed such that they can be used by a lay person in situations where professional medical personnel are not available.
Given their potential to save lives, automated external defibrillators have been deployed in a relatively wide variety of public and private locations so that they are available in the event that a person in the vicinity goes in to cardiac arrest. By way of example, AEDs may be found in corporate and government offices, shopping centers, airports, airplanes, restaurants, casinos, hotels, sports stadiums, schools, fitness centers and a variety of other locations where people may congregate.
Although the availability of AEDs has increased over the years, their relatively high cost tends to limit their placement and many locations including schools, sports fields, and a plethora of other places where people congregate don't have an on-site AED available. Thus there are many times, locations and events where no AED is available when a cardiac arrest incident occurs. Even when an AED is nearby when a sudden cardiac arrest incident occurs, the AED is often not used because either its presence is unknown or the device seems intimidating to bystanders who are reluctant to try to use a device that they are unfamiliar with in an emergency setting.
A number of efforts have been made to increase the public awareness of public access defibrillators. By way of example, there are a number of websites and downloadable apps that show the location of registered or otherwise known public access defibrillators. A few representative solutions include Pulsepoint (www.pulsepoint.org); AEDMAP (www.aedmap.org) and HeartSafe (www.heartsafe.org.uk). Although such efforts can be very helpful, to be used at the time of a cardiac incident, they require a bystander to lookup the location of nearby AED and go fetch the nearest AED which hopefully is present at its marked location and in good working order.
Another effort is Pulse Point Respond (www.pulsepoint.org/pulsepoint-respond/), which is a community based program in which volunteer citizen responders who are trained in CPR and AED use, are informed of nearby cardiac incidents that are occurring in public places. The concept behind the citizen responder projects is that a citizen responder may be able to reach a cardiac incident faster than conventional emergency medical services. This is particularly critical for cardiac arrest incidents where statistics show that survival rates decrease at a rate of on the order of 10% with each passing minute. The Pulse Point Respond system is tied in with emergency services so that the call for citizen responders is triggered by emergency services.
Although these types of systems are clearly beneficial, there are continuing efforts to develop additional and improved techniques that can further increase public awareness, help shorten cardiac arrest response times and/or otherwise improve cardiac arrest survival rates.